I’m in a mindless mood, so all you’re getting is a mindless post and then I’m going back to doodling on my map some more — which I’ve redone yet again since my last post. No there aren’t any pictures yet and yes, I am twelve thankyouverymuch, now fuck off¹.

Err, where was I?

Oh yes, the poll. It’s not mine but I agree with the end result wholeheartedly. Farscape was a very close second and I’d have the original Stargate as a write in 3rd place vote just cause it’s that damn cool but only if Richard Dean Anderson came back full time.

¹ See Amanda, I even type it now and again.

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I find this is a very cool and interesting image. Do you know what it is?

I’ll give you until Friday and then post the answer in the comments.

Looks like good ol’ Mr. Martin actually heard and listened to my previous belligerent rantings about A Dance With Dragons and decided that ten and a half months between teasers is much too long of a time for the average fan to wait. He went ahead and posted a new teaser chapter as a milksop for us while he continues to muddle through with finishing the book. This is the first chapter with Jon in it (Cheer!) and will be alternately rotated with the existing Danaerys and Tyrion chapters that he’d already posted. I apparently have had crap luck because I had no idea that he’d even posted a Tyrion chapter. Every time I’ve checked the sample pages it’s always been the Danaerys chapter. Who knew. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye out and if I’m lucky I’ll be able to read it before the book is actually published.

In other news regarding the A Song of Ice and Fire series, I found this link to The Tower Of the Hand over on Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist (I’m really link dropping a lot in this post) found it was a pretty interesting and thorough resource for the series with all sorts of fun tid-bits of information and obscure references and connections/theories that I had missed. If you like the series and want to learn more, I suggest you check it out but as always, your mileage may vary.

While we’re on the subject of books I guess I should mention, for those of you that hadn’t heard, that Tor books have announced that author Brandon Sanderson has been selected to write A Memory of Light, the final book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Apparently he was selected by Harriet Rigney, RJ’s widow, because she was impressed with his other work… to which I say “Wha–? Who? What other work? Who the hell is this guy?”

From what I’ve read, he’s apparently been given a mass of encyclopaedic notes and will be following an outline by RJ himself. I’m optimistic, even if I’ve never heard of the guy before. Let’s just all hope for no braid pulling and no “road to Caemlyn” chapters.

I recently added two features to the blog that I have somewhat mixed feelings about but I figured that I should at least give them a chance before I naysay them or take them down.

First up, I added Gravatar functionality to the blog’s comment section. What is a Gravatar you ask? It’s a Globally Recognized Avatar. Basically it’s a little picture or graphic like what you’d find on a forum that’s used to identify your posts and comments. All the Globally Recognized part means is that the image is linked to an email address of your choosing so any site that you go to that uses Gravatars will post associate an avatar with your email.

I personally like this idea and it’s native to 90% of the themes on Wordpress (not surprising as the Wordpress guys bought Gravatar recently) but it didn’t seem to be that way with the particular theme that I’m using so I got off my lazy arse and went ahead and played around and activated it (I’m still trying to clean up/tweak the sidebar widget to fix the number of list stars that appear in the background). Now all I have to do is manage to convince people to actually use Gravatars. So go sign up already. It’s free and there’s no spam involved. There, wasn’t that convincing?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

The other feature that I added was Twitter, which is the add on that I’m unsure about. I just don’t know if I need it. For the most part though, I’m just trying to actually figure out what the point of the whole thing is and why everyone is making such a damn fuss over the idea. I mean, I get the general gist of it: you can use it to keep your readers “up to date” about your current whereabouts and such in “realtime”. It’s a perfect example of the whole interactive Web 2.0 ideal that everyone spouts off on in the media these days and from that theoretical standpoint I like it. From a practical standpoint however, I feel that I just don’t lead an interesting enough life to warrant 24/7 interaction.

Maybe I’m wrong though and there’s a dedicated cult of nubile young women out there stalking and tracking my every move (wouldn’t that be nice). Who knows. I guess I’ll leave it up for the moment and see how useful useless it turns to really be. If the nubile nymph cult comes calling, you lot will probably be the last to know.

I could wish you all a Happy New Year and join you in the traditional singing (read: butchering) of Auld Lang Syne but I won’t. I just don’t care for the tradition. Nor do I really care for the tradition of watching the walking corpse known as Dick Clark as he shills craptastic bands and singers on us and they all end up watching a glorified Christmas decoration “fall down” to commemorate what is essentially just another spin around the sun.

For me, New Year’s Eve has always been a time of personal introspection and reflection. While I usually spend it blissfully drunk off my gourd in the company of good friends (whalebone anyone?), I am generally just being social for my friends’ sake. I have always actually preferred to be alone, in the dark and silence thinking about life as midnight rolls around.

In the quiet and dark I can reflect on my deeds and misdeeds, my triumphs and failures and while I don’t ever set resolutions because I don’t really believe in them (I’m too much of a procrastinator), I do try to promise myself to not repeat the same mistakes in the upcoming year. Sometimes I even accomplish this.

In the past while I’ve been mulling over the year I’ve always managed to find a song that fits my mood and in some way describes my overall feelings. This year is no exception.

This time around, the song that best describes how I feel about the year is A Long December by Counting Crows. It’s sad and melancholy with just the barest shade of hope that things will get better in the coming months. To me it perfectly reflects and sums up my mood, especially for the latter half of this past year.

 

 A Long December - Counting Crows [4:58m]: Play Now

On that note, good night folks. Maybe this year will be better than the last…

I’m going to make what will most likely be my final post for 2007 into an opportunity to sum up this blog for the year. The highs, the lows, the bad spelling and grammar. In essence: The good, the bad and the ugly.

Here goes:

“I babbled frequently and meaninglessly on a vast number of topics that ultimately only interested a few very deluded individuals.”

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I know that earlier in the week I said that there was a chance that I’d spew forth more of my unwanted opinions on the year’s best media but as I’m sitting here on a grey and cold Friday night, with snow lazily drifting down outside, I’ve decided I really just can’t be bothered.

I’m sure I could rifle through twelve months worth of memories and come up with a list of books and movies that I liked during the past year if I so desired but I just really dont’ want to. The movies that I truly liked, can be counted on two fingers and the books I liked couldn’t be counted on ten hands.

The only two movies that I truly and passionately enjoyed this past year were simple, well made and, for anyone that knows me well, obviously appealed to my very nature. While I’m certain I could find three more to fill in the other “top five” spots with relative ease, I just don’t really want to. That would spoil the joy of the other two now wouldn’t it.

Stardust will remain my favourite movie for the year, and for quite some time to come. A perfect fairy tale story filled with all the wonder and mystery that such stories should contain. It wasn’t a verbatim adaptation of the novel by any means and there were points where I sighed regrettably at the “hollywoodization” of the story, but regardless of the changes it still measured up well. I’ve recently watched the DVD and managed to see some of the extra footage with the ghosts and wished that a) there had been more included on the disc and b) that they had been given a little more screen time in the movie. Still, the whole thing makes me happy and that’s what matters in the end.

The only other movie that I really, really enjoyed this year was The Bourne Ultimatum. I loved how the story meshed almost seamlessly with it’s immediate predecessor, The Bourne Supremacy, and how the main character was still focused, engaging and viable after three movies. It was a hard task to accomplish but I believe Matt Damon managed to pull it off well. The shaky hand-held digital camera action was still there adding to the frenetic pace and intensity of the film that really never let’s up. The franchise has veered pretty far from Ludlum’s original novels but in the end I think that’s a good thing as the novels are somewhat dated in the modern world and this new take works much better than a story about Carlos The Jackal ever would. I believe that there is so much more to tell about the character. I’d love to see a fourth movie. Here’s hoping it becomes a reality.

As for books, I’ve really read too many this past year, and not all of them were published recently so I’m not even going to bother with even a list. It just wouldn’t do them all justice.

The only book that I wanted to read this year wasn’t released and until it is, I’m going to wait somewhat patiently and hope it will be soon™. (Ahem… Mr. Martin, Get a bloody move on already!) Until then, I shall remain tight-lipped on the subject.

On that note, good night for now and may the fleas of a thousand reindeer nest in your genitalia.

Merry Bah Humbug to all

and to all a good night!